Chapter 3Mature

I couldn't really say the cemetery was dark. It seemed to be in a perpetual state of twilight... between the sun's gleam and the moon's glow. I remember that there were no stars in the sky that night. I shivered; not because I was cold, but because I was afraid. Afraid of what? I don't know. Maybe a part of me already knew what this night was the beginning of. Maybe that tiny little shudder was the first part of my soul leaving me. The wind rustling through the trees stopped abruptly, and all of a sudden, I was cast back into that dream of nothingness. I could still percieve that cemetery around me... the graves, the withering plants, the harrowing silence. But at the same time, I knew I was not a part of it. I had stepped away from it, out of reality. I turned around, and there he was.

"I'm glad you came, Myah." A warm smile played across his lips. I could not find any words to say, so I just watched him approach. He rested his hand against my cheek. "So very glad." I managed to nod, and his smile widened. His eyes; his perfect, empty eyes were swallowing me whole. He turned me around to look out upon the cemetery, his hands still on my shoulders. "I know your deepest secrets, Myah. I know that you have wished a thousand times that you could join them. That you could be free from the hardship of life, that your soul could leave your body and soar, unhindered, into the heavens. Where are we now? We're outside of ourselves. We have become the abstract. We are nowhere. But we are free. I can give you this, Myah. I can stop the pain."

I found myself in tears."You think this is unnatural." It wasn't a question. He knew... he knew what I was thinking. How could he not know? He knew everything. "Without this place, without this world outside of the world, everything you know would crumble out of existence. This place keeps your world alive. What could be more natural than that?" His voice had become a soft murmur, and if we had been real, I would have been able to feel his breath on the side of my face."What do I have to do?" I asked him."You have to wake up now. You will know when I need you to do something." He turned me around to face him. "My dear, sweet Myah," he murmured. He leaned in and kissed me. I could feel him invading me - my heart, my soul, everything that I could have claimed as mine was his in those few moments. I remembered what he said; that I had to let him in. So in that moment, in that kiss, I did. He became a part of me. When I looked up at him, the substance of the world had left his eyes. I could feel something within me, something that wasn't me. He smiled and vanished.

I woke up in a cold sweat. I knew instantly that it had not been a dream. I had met the Sorceror again. I could feel his emptiness eroding me from the inside. I looked down on Jane, who was sleeping calmly. I held her close and cried into her hair, though I didn't know why. I was not upset. I was not scared. I was nothing.

A few days past with no word from the Sorceror. Existence lurched on, carrying us all forwards, bearing the weight of our worlds on its shoulders as best it could. It was during this period of relative serenity that the first dream came. In the dream I was standing over the bed of a man I did not recognize. He was sleeping soundly. There was something faintly... unsettling about him. For some reason, I noticed instantly the wedding ring on his finger. I felt compelled to wake him up; I did not realize why until I heard the voice of the Sorceror in my ear. 'Corrupt him.' Why? Why did I not ask why? Why, instead of refusing, did I proceed to wake a married man and seduce him? I had not yet realized it, but the Sorceror's kiss had bound my soul to him. I was his. As the stranger lay spent beside me, the Sorceror's voice whispered to me once more; 'end him'.

There was a knife in my hand. It was a dream, it didn't have to make sense. I ran the tip gently from his collarbone to his stomach. He woke, and looked blearily up at me. As he reached for my face, I plunged the knife under his ribcage. Thick, warm blood splattered against me. I could feel his life force, I could taste it on the air as it left him. I shuddered, electricity running up and down my spine. 'Again. Stab him again.' I did as intructed, drawing the dagger out of him and thrusting it into the flesh under his chin. Again, I was bathed in his intoxicating blood. A red mist swirled from his mouth, taking with it his final breath. It passed into me sending a jolt of electricity through me so powerful that I almost screamed. The stranger lay dead beneath me, and I knelt splattered with blood, a satisfied smile upon my lips.

The next day, a scrap of the local newspaper swept on the wind through my window. A local bishop had been found dead, naked in his own bed. There were no signs of a criminal entering the house.

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